MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine farmers cautious about talks with government

Argentine farmers' representatives and government officials agreed Monday on an agenda of specific issues to be addressed as of Tuesday by special technical joint committees in the Department of Agriculture, but were also cautious about how the situation evolves.

We talked about a national agriculture policy with a ten year horizon for which special expert committees has been named but we also talked about the sliding export duties and the different sectors of the camp. In the next 15 days we'll see if that's the course we wanted or if it was a mere distraction", said Eduardo Buzzi head of the Argentine Agrarian Federation, one of the four farmers organizations present at the Government House meeting. "We've basically agreed on a work methodology with the government, and in this way we pretend to solve the current conflict situation", added Buzzi. Argentine farmers organized a 21 day stoppage to protest export levies on oilseeds and grains, which was only lifted following government promises to review the whole taxing policy towards the camp and other grievances which have been cutting into farmers earnings. The government argues that export levies are windfall taxes with the purpose of an income redistribution policy. Farmers say taxes are too high and with soaring costs, profits are disappearing. A truce was sealed last week when President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner met several hours with representative from the four main farmers organizations at Government House opening the round of meetings which begun Monday with cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez acting as chairman. Luciano Miguens from the Argentine Rural Society, Mario Llambias from the Argentine Rural Confederations and Fernando Gioino from Coninagro completed the farmers' delegation. "People are still ill tempered in the camp and want results", added Buzzi who recalled that "next week we must begin planting wheat and we must know what's going to happen with export taxes on milk and dairy produce". "The positive side is that for the first time in four years we are sitting with government to talk about the camp", said Miguens and anticipated that with some of the requests, "we'll be successful, but not in others". However the "crucial issue are the export duties and the fact the government has promised compensations for small farmers is indicating that the decision has defects". "We are committed to proving export levies have more defects than virtues", he underlined.